As part of Reaching for Higher Ground events “Critical Conversations: Voices of the Cedar Valley” will showcase the work of students in teacher Mirsa Rudic’s 6th grade class for English Language Learners at Carver Academy in Waterloo. These students, as a part of a service-learning partnership with a Wartburg College course, participated in a PhotoVoice project where they took photos and wrote about their conceptions of the American Dream. The event will include a panel of speakers following the showcased photography that will promote rich dialogue about the hopes, dreams, and needs of English Language Learners in our community. The overall goal of the forum is to address the implications the students' stories have for practice, research, and policy change in the local, state, and national educational arena.